


The intergalactic travel checklist

by irisdouglasiana



Category: Lovecraft Country (TV)
Genre: Gen, if hippolyta can meet a space alien goddess then diana can meet a mermaid, that's just the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26761786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisdouglasiana/pseuds/irisdouglasiana
Summary: This is the intergalactic travel checklist: two spacesuits, custom fitted. One spare warp drive. (You don’t wantthatto break down in the middle of the nebula.) Rocket fuel canisters. Toolkit. Flashlights with extra batteries. Annotated constellation map. Sketchbook, colored pencils, pencil sharpener. And lots and lots of reading material.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	The intergalactic travel checklist

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing this before 1x8, so this will not even be remotely close to canon and it might end up being kind ooc since Diana hasn't had a ton of scenes so far, but...I just wanted her to get her own adventure/a little bit of closure to go along with Hippolyta's journey. I hope I do her justice.

It is a beautiful, cloudless morning when the banks of Lake Michigan suddenly overflow and send waves crashing right into the Freeman apartment. Diana wakes to the sound of water rushing through the halls and spilling through the crack under her door and into her room. By the time she scrambles out of bed, the water is already calf-deep and rising fast. She rolls up the legs of her pajama pants, hastily snatches her sketchbook and her tin of colored pencils from the bookshelf so they won’t get wet, and goes wading through the halls. Old newspapers and playing cards go drifting by her legs, pulled towards the kitchen by the current.

A strange scent permeates the entire apartment. It takes her a moment to realize that it isn’t lake water or sewage—this water smells of brine and salt, just like the sea. She almost calls out for her parents before she remembers they aren’t there; her mom is still out on a guide trip and her dad is…well, he’s _gone._

“Ruby?” she asks instead. “Leti? Where are you?”

No answer. The water is now above her knees, and she feels the first traces of panic setting in as she sloshes to the kitchen. “Ruby! Leti!” she calls out again. “This isn’t funny, where _are_ you?”

Diana nearly drops her sketchbook in surprise when she passes through the doorway into the kitchen. The current is much stronger here and the waves much higher, and she has to brace herself against the doorframe to keep herself from getting pulled right into the churning whirlpool in the middle of the floor where the kitchen table used to be. She starts backing up slowly, one step at a time, steadying herself with her free hand on the wall.

There was a story her dad told her a long time ago about a family trip to the lake they had taken when he was not much younger than she is now: he didn’t know how to swim, but, feeling bold, he waded in anyway. He was waist-deep in the water when something he couldn’t see grabbed him by the leg and dragged him under, and he had only been saved from drowning by Montrose, who had seen him go down. _They said it was just a rip current,_ her dad recalled, _but it wasn’t that. I think it was something else._

Diana nervously backs up one step, and then one step more. She closes her eyes for a moment and tries to imagine what her mom would say if she were here: _Dee, hurry up, we have to get on the roof._

She can get to the roof from the fire escape, but to do that, she will have to pass through the kitchen first. She maps out her path in her head—she can work her way around the edges of the room and hang on to the refrigerator and counter, then hug the wall until she makes it to the window and onto the fire escape. And from there, once she gets on the roof…well, she doesn’t know what to do after that, but she’ll figure it out when she gets to that point.

She exhales slowly and steels herself to go back, but before she can take a step forward, something grabs her ankle. She lets out a scream just before she gets pulled completely under. She kicks and thrashes around but the grip on her ankle is too strong, and already the air is leaving her lungs as the thing drags her into the kitchen towards the whirlpool. She manages to get her head above the water just long enough to hear Leti calling for her before she gets pulled under again. She tries to say _I’m here, I’m here_ , but she’s choking on saltwater and her vision is starting to go fuzzy.

The darkness closes in around her and drags her all the way down.

* * *

When she opens her eyes again, everything is quiet—no roaring of water in her ears, no one calling her name. She looks up at a wall of water and sees the outline of fish and sharks swimming high above her head. She realizes then that she is floating in some sort of bubble, with her sketchbook floating beside her along with her colored pencils, loose from their tin. She spins around in a full circle, reaches out with one hand, and tentatively pushes at the walls of the bubble. It stretches and then gently bounces back into place.

“Mom? Dad?” she asks out loud. She hates how shaky and scared her voice sounds, like a little kid. _Dad’s dead, stupid. He can't help._ “Anybody?”

The hair on the back of her neck prickles. _Someone is watching._ She spins around three more times before she finally figures out that she is being observed from _below_. She looks down and gasps.

A mermaid is swimming in slow, graceful circles beneath her. She looks up and smiles at Diana, and Diana is reminded a little bit of Ruby—well, if Ruby had a long tail and shining blue scales on her face and torso, that is. But the thing that truly draws Diana’s attention is the glowing city perched on the ocean floor. She presses her face right up against the bottom of the bubble to get a better look, and she can just make out the tiny figures of other mermaids swimming around tall pyramids made of glass.

“Is that Atlantis?” she asks in a hushed voice. “Can you take me there?”

“You can go anywhere,” the mermaid answers, and her voice is so powerful and deep that Diana covers her ears and winces.

“But I can’t swim,” she says, crestfallen.

“You can go anywhere,” the mermaid repeats.

“Wait—” Diana says, but the mermaid is already swimming away. She pushes futilely at the walls of the bubble, and when nothing happens, she heaves her entire body at it. It stretches and then snaps back, sending her bouncing into the other side. It doesn’t hurt, but her eyes start welling up with tears anyway. She hits the bubble with her hand one more time and then she draws her knees up to her chest and sniffles.

_They all left: first Dad, then Mom, then Tic, Ruby, and Leti. Even the stupid mermaid left. Nobody is coming back for me._

Her tears float around in the bubble and collide with the sketchpad. They leave behind little wet spots on the pages, and for a moment, Diana considers ripping the entire thing to shreds. Instead, she plucks it out of the air and starts flipping through her old sketches. Most of it is random doodles and unfinished sketches, but she also finds Orithyia Blue piloting a spaceship, exploring a strange planet, hovering among the stars before a vast unknown being…

She plucks one of her pencils out of the air and turns her attention to Atlantis, absorbing all the details in her mind before putting the pencil to the page and starting to tentatively sketch out the city—a dozen towering transparent pyramids, illuminated by soft green lights from the inside. She draws the mermaids and schools of jellyfish. At this distance, they ripple and shift like waves of light.

“I can go anywhere,” she whispers, just like the mermaid told her. “ _I can go anywhere._ ”

She hesitates. Then, at the bottom of the page, in exactly the middle of the biggest pyramid, she sketches a tiny picture of herself.

The moment she lifts her pencil from the page, the bubble vanishes with a pop and the water rushes in. Before she can cry out, she feels herself being whooshed away once more, hurling straight down into the heart of Atlantis and into the pyramid. She hits the ground hard enough to make her hands and knees sting and her head spin. She just lies there for a minute, panting and soaking wet, with one side of her face pressed into the dirt. Then, when she feels she can finally move again, she sits up slowly and looks around in awe.

The pyramid contains a forest filled with massive trees that stretch hundreds of feet above her head, swaying slightly in the breeze. She cannot tell where the glass form of the pyramid ends and the ocean begins, but she can just make out the faint silhouettes of mermaids swimming far above. Though she can’t see them, she can hear birds chirping, and she can smell the rich mixture of soil and fallen leaves. In here, all of her senses feel heightened somehow: everything looks just a little bit sharper and more in focus, just a little more real than real life.

“Lady Diana,” someone says from behind her, and she whips her head around to see a girl her own age. She is dressed in a white tunic like the kind she had seen the goddesses wearing in her mom’s old book of Greek myths, and there is something familiar about the way she smiles. She holds out a bow and a quiver of golden arrows.

Diana stands up on shaky legs. When she had fallen through the pyramid, her pajamas had been completely soaked with seawater, but by now she is already somehow dry. She slings the quiver over her back and takes the bow. It fits perfectly in her hands. “How do you know my name?” she asks the girl.

“We’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” she answers. “Now follow me.”

Although Diana feels weak at first, her strength returns to her once she starts to run. She splashes through streams and leaps over fallen logs, she flushes flocks of birds out of hiding and chases after wolves, she climbs halfway up the tallest tree she can find just because she can. She gazes up through the overlapping branches and leaves: above her head is another world, and above that, another world still. She wants to go even higher, but the girl calls her name and she reluctantly climbs down, though not before snatching a leaf and tucking it into the pocket of her pajama pants.

She follows the girl through the forest to a wide clearing filled with flowers. Only then does she see what they have been looking for this entire time: a doe with golden fur and soft dark eyes, grazing on the far side of the meadow. It raises its head and looks straight at Diana, one ear twitching. She has never seen any animal as beautiful as this, and her breath catches in her throat.

Without looking away, Diana slowly lifts her bow and pulls an arrow from the quiver. She has never shot an arrow in her life, but somehow it feels natural to draw the arrow back and take aim, as though she has done it a thousand times before. As though she has found what she was born to do. _Huntress Diana, goddess of the wild places._

She takes a deep breath. Then she shoots.

The arrow passes just inches above the doe’s head. It blinks at her slowly before turning and walking back into the woods. Behind it, a small golden fawn shakily gets to its feet and follows. Diana hadn't even seen it hiding in the tall grass. She lets go of the bow and drops the quiver on the ground, and without asking, the girl gives Diana her sketchbook and tin of colored pencils. She flips past her drawing of Atlantis and runs her fingers along the next blank page.

She takes a seat on the ground and starts to sketch from memory. She has drawn heroes and monsters and alien landscapes many times, and carefully replicated the scenes from books about distant lands. She has willed entire worlds into creation with just a few strokes of pencil. But now she draws something new, something so familiar and mundane that it never even occurred to her that she should draw it.

In the middle of the page: the kitchen table that had once belonged to her grandparents, the dark wood worn perfectly smooth from years of use. Place settings for three. Glasses of orange juice for Diana and her dad and a cup of coffee with a dash of cream for her mom. Toast with jam, eggs over easy, yolk pooling on the plates exactly the way she likes. Refrigerator in the corner, dishes drying in the rack, a damp tea towel left carelessly on the counter. Over by the open window, Hippolyta’s telescope, aimed in the direction of Hera’s Chariot. And at the table: herself, seated between her parents.

She lifts her pencil off the page and stares in awe at what she has made. Then she looks up at the girl, who has picked up the dropped quiver and the bow. She has the mermaid’s face, beautiful and ancient and full of knowledge.

“I can go there,” Diana says in astonishment.

The mermaid smiles. “Then go,” she says softly, and Atlantis fades away into nothing.

* * *

Diana wakes up in her own bed. No flood in her room, no smell of saltwater lingering in the air. No mermaids, no Atlantis, no forests. “It was just a dream,” she mumbles to herself. She rolls over in bed and sighs loudly, and she considers the possibility of spending the entire day in bed, but then her stomach growls and she makes herself get up. She will have to make breakfast herself; it's so early that she is sure Ruby and Leti must still be sleeping.

There is something in the pocket of her pajama pants that is poking into her leg. She reaches inside and fishes out a leaf. She frowns at it for a long moment. Her stomach growls again and so she puts it back in her pocket and wanders down the hall and into the kitchen, where she stops dead in her tracks.

No one is there, but the table has been set for three people. Two glasses of orange juice and one cup of coffee, plates filled with toast and eggs. Even a tea towel on the counter, just like how she drew it. It’s all waiting for her.

“Dee?”

She turns around and races blindly into her father’s arms, squeezing him as tight as she can. He hugs her back and kisses the top of her head as incoherent words spill out of her mouth, everything she has wanted to tell him in these awful past few months, every feeling she has forced herself to swallow, all that and so much more. At long last, after she has cried her eyes out and then some, and he’s rubbed her back for a long time just like when she was a baby, she lets go of him and takes a step back.

“You left us,” she says, and she told herself she was done crying but the tears start rolling down her face again anyway. “You left before and you always came back. And then you didn’t.”

He wipes away a tear of his own. “I know, Dee,” he says in a rough voice. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

“Where’s Mom? Or is she gone for good too?”

“She’s traveling, Dee. It’s what she’s wanted to do for a long, long time. I think I sometimes got so wrapped up in my own travels that I didn’t think about how the two of you felt about always staying behind. I thought I was keeping you safe, but now I know that I hurt you too, and I never wanted that.”

“Can we go find her?” she asks, wiping the snot from her nose with her sleeve. "Can we all be together again?"

He gives her his handkerchief without asking and she wipes away the rest of the snot before giving it back. He tucks it into his pocket with a smile. “Of course we can. We can go anywhere you want, kid. You already know how to get there.”

Her stomach rumbles again and he laughs. “Maybe we should eat something first, though,” he says with a grin. “I’d hate to waste those eggs.”

It turns out to be the best breakfast Diana has ever had in her life.

* * *

This is the intergalactic travel checklist: two spacesuits, custom fitted. One spare warp drive. (You don’t want _that_ to break down in the middle of the nebula.) Rocket fuel canisters. Toolkit. Flashlights with extra batteries. Annotated constellation map. Sketchbook, colored pencils, pencil sharpener. Lots and lots of reading material.

“Ready, Dee?” her dad asks from the passenger seat of the control room. He adjusts his helmet one more time and examines the map, and smiles when she turns it right side up for him. “Once we get up to warp speed, it’s going to be fifty-five hours, seventeen minutes, and six seconds to Hera’s Chariot.”

She looks at the controls in front of her—a huge display of blinking lights and dials and levers, with labels in an alien script. “I’ve never piloted a spaceship before.”

“Oh, I think you’ll be a natural at it. Just like your mom.”

“And like you, Dad.” She takes a deep breath, punches in the combination of coordinates for the warp drive, and listens as the engine comes roaring to life. “Count down with me?”

_T minus ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one…_


End file.
